A Future Without A Past
by Tia Paes
Summary: Kirk's past was riddled with misfortune. From his lonely childhood to the horror of Tarsus IV, it's a wonder that he even survived. Ratings for abuse and violence.


**A Future Without A Past**

**Warnings: **Mentions of child abuse and genocide.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own anything in relation to Star Trek, nor the characters and I certainly do not gain a profit from this!

**AN: **I've always been interested in Kirk's childhood. It seems to logical to me that Jim grew up in a home that wasn't kind, nor nurturing and since that made him the person we see in the films, I think it's important to explore that. Thanks to some fantastic fanfiction, I've really become interested in Tarsus and the horrific events which happened on its surface. Hopefully, I have brought about those events in a realistic manner. Please review if you reach the end :D

_~xx~_

He's shipped off to Tarsus on a cold, dreary day.

He's worn his shoes to the sole and his shirt is faded and littered with stains and markings. He can feel the cold penetrate his skin like icy needles and the house seems barren and unfeeling. His mother, distant and aloof as she is, has deep bags underneath her eyes and when she sits, she seems to sink into the couch. He almost believes that everything is alright, that they are just going through a difficult time.

Sam is a top student, a bright, energetic and athletic boy. He's only had a few girlfriends and when he dates someone, he tends to leave the house for days at a time. Jim often wonders where he is and the thought of hot, delicious dinners makes him bitter and spiteful. He knows that Sam has a kind of selfishness that makes him oblivious to other people's pain but he'd like just one person to relate to. Just one person to understand why he acts out as he does.

He steals small things at first; sandwiches from the other classmates bags, a coat to drape over himself at night. When he realizes that he has a talent for it –a gift- he acts out in other ways. He knows that his mother is selling all their treasured things, that her jobs doesn't seem to pay enough anymore to put electricity in the house, water in the drains, food in the fridge, a mortgage broker off their lawn and an extra blanket for the bed. He knows that his mother is not so secretly proud of Sam and that she resents him. He can feel it in the very air around her. The worst part is not that she yells or screams or cries, but more so that she doesn't seem to notice him.

When the cops bring him home and Frank's fury is fuming behind his eyes, he realizes that he has crossed the line. He cries silently when Frank kicks him, when a bottle smashes beside his arm and embeds small crystal shards in him. He is hit and hurt and he feels like life is only just pain and misery.

And then his mother finally accepts that he is nothing in her life. She needs the money which is spent on him, she needs the few extra dollars that would give them vegetables and fuel for the car. Jim needs to find a way out of their lives, away from the pain.

And so, they send him off to Tarsus IV.

He doesn't know a lot about it, just that there seems to be a lot of kids like him who are scared and deemed 'trouble makers.' To him, they just seem normal and he can at least sympathize with their cold demeanours. He hasn't learned how to be sociable yet, his network of friends limited to his brother. Children tend to not hang around people who can't afford to hang out at shops and buy delicious things as treats.

He doesn't speak a lot at first and he's content with the family whom houses him. He sleeps in a small cot and the cold isn't as biting and meals are just a little bit more filling. When they ask about his parents, he doesn't say more then a few words. After all, he's famous by association to his father. He doesn't correct them when they assume that he lives in a beautiful, fancy house. That he is spoiled rotten by his mother and loved by his classmates. He likes the false past he has built for himself, he almost begins to believe that it is real. He wonders whether he can work for enough years to live by himself, although an independent life is quite far from his narrow seeing mind.

He doesn't see the way that his foster family starts to thin, or the way that the crops fade and fail to yield anything but long stalks of grass.

When they come, unexpected in his case, he feels as if he has entered a war zone.

There is crying and screaming and the sound of death and carnage. He's hiding in the loft when it happens, too late to save the nice couple who gave him a bed. When they pass under him, he holds his breath until he thinks he may pass out. He doesn't notice that he is crying until he feels his face.

He grows up in an instant. He doesn't walk in the open street when he emerges from the house. He slinks along the walls and crouches behind crates and cars. He hides when _they _walk through a stinking, blood-drenched street and he listens for anything, any movement. Resilient, more so then the adults, children emerge. Some skilfully, walking in the shadow of a building, some hiding under a car. And some, small and innocent enough to walk openly in the streets, a thumb in their mouths as they look uncomprehendingly at their parent's blood strewn corpses.

He doesn't process what he is doing when he picks them up. The first child is too scared to scream so he simply carries her to a small barn and hides her under the floorboards. He grabs two more before the day is up, storing them beneath the house like precious treasures. When night comes, he asks them quietly who they are and they cry quietly as they stutter out their names. He lets the smallest child lay in his lap while he listens every moment and second for the sound of _their _voices.

When the sun is preparing to rise, he lifts the floorboards and steals away into the long stalked corn fields. They are just small enough to be hidden and he tells them to be quiet and to not make one sound. He sits with them for hours, until the sun is in the sky and hovering over their heads. When the smallest child starts to cry from hunger, he knows that he has to do something.

He steals and scavenges. He gnaws on bread that has mould spots on it and lets the children drink the juices of canned peaches and pears. He finds a bag of grains untouched by blood and they eat the grains hungrily and without any concern for the taste. Sometimes, the hunger burns so much that he feels he might die. The children don't talk more then a few words, so used to silence and fear that they have lost the ability to converse normally. Although there is a silence between them, he knows that each person is nurturing a devotion towards each other. There is something in the starvation and the pain that can be shared and lifted. He learns that one child is called Kevin, the other Thomas. Little Sarah can only say her name, too afraid to lift her voice above a whisper.

When the dogs come, they are sleeping. He should have heard their barks from a distance but he is tired and feels safe within the field. The smell of their bodies has travelled across the wind and when the dogs smell it, they strain against their leashes and snap their jaws in their direction. At a run, _they _are suddenly upon them, grabbing them by their bodies and kicking them into the ground. Sarah cries harder then she ever had and when the noise turns deafening, _they _send her to the ground with such force that her skull is broken. The crying stops but the screaming begins from Kevin and Thomas. When Thomas doesn't stop, he is hit with such force that the side of his face caves in. There is a gash down his face and his eye has exploded from the impact. He is unconscious and Jim feels like retching and retching and retching until his stomach is cleansed.

They are taken to a prison, in the centre of the capital city.

Sarah's body is left behind, another nameless corpse that litters Tarsus's many fields and streets. Jim can't seem to cry for her because he's so afraid that all he can think of is surviving. Thomas hasn't woken up from the impact but he is breathing, although his gasps are painful and horrid sounding. Kevin clings to his body the entire time, his eyes always watching Thomas's body. His breath hitched.

They stand in a line, Thomas having been awakened by a bucket of cold water. They are chained together, like the ancient criminals of Earth once were. They are made to stand in the sun, faint from lack of food and water. They dare not fall because they had seen the results of such actions being hauled away.

Kodos, a man that he had only heard mentioned in his foster house, walks up and down the line. Jim later learns that he likes to see those who had escaped and lived for so long. He likes to be reminded of whose souls he were breaking. He didn't know so at the time how important it was, but he felt with every inch of his body that he needed to remember him. Even if he died right then and there, he needed to know who had ordered the genocide. Kodos didn't even glance at him, as if he was less then a speck of dust.

They are taken to a prison which is filled with children. The children do not speak when they enter but when Thomas falls against one of them, they are suddenly smoothing away his hair and whispering to him in soft voices. Jim is content to just watch them, marvelling at the compassion they show towards their fellow human being. He wanders how Kodos could lack such a part of him, how he could bear to murder such innocent, loving creatures. He cries for Sarah and Kevin simply grips onto him harder.

They begin to notice that something is different when the food doesn't come.

Jim does not know a lot about prisons but he knows that prisoners are fed. He knows that there are regular times for feeding and that even if they are sparse and few between, they should still happen. There aren't the sounds of footsteps, or a bark of laughter or the scuff of a shoe on pavement. There is simply silence.

The children seem to gravitate towards him, using his size as a barrier to the door. He finds a strange peace in the role of protector and leader and he somehow knows that it is what he should devote his life to.

It has been days since they have last been fed and while he still stares at the door, others have fallen into a deep sleep. He knows that unless they eat, they will die on the cold, barren ground of the cell.

It has been but a week since the start of the genocide when Starfleet comes.

They prepare to be whipped and kicked and killed when they hear footsteps down the hall. The children cry silently and he holds onto Kevin as if he was the only thing in the world. He stands up, somehow believing that it will stop something terrible from happening. When the door is opened, shocked faces meet them. Shocked faces that belong to people who can not understand why nine children are in a cell. That can not understand what it is to see a child die and know that you can do _nothing _to help her. Faces that feel revulsion and disgust at the sight of too thin legs and hollow, empty (yet watchful), eyes.

Jim knows that he is safe but he doesn't feel right. The children, so easily adapted to change, simply throw themselves into the arms of rescuers. He is older, more understanding of what has happened and so he simply waits patiently, while the children are consoled. A young medic talks to him softly but he can only hear screaming and panic in his head. He follows him without a word, his hand grasped tightly onto Kevin's small fingers. He can tell that their silence unnerves the Starfleet cadet's.

When they find out who he is, the world seems to stop. They all remember Winona's broadcast, only days after the death of George Kirk. They remember how she held Jim, sobbing uncontrollably as she recounted his last moments. They remember how Jim was too young to understand what was happening so he simply stared at the camera. Although there is an anger that he was there, there is also a sense of pity. For such a star child to turn into him is more then a little disheartening.

Winona shed tears that Jim believes are sincere. When she is waiting for him after the shuttle touches down and he's been cleaned and questioned and bandaged, she does cry. Frank isn't there but Jim is sure that he's still in their lives. Sam isn't there as well, Winona doesn't want him to see his brother before they've had a talk about what he can say of his time. Jim thinks that she doesn't need to worry because he had no plans to talk… at all. He simply would like to find a patch of dirt in the middle of a cornfield and hide. It's all that he seems to remember doing and although he was afraid and dirty, he was also safe. He turns fourteen a few days after his return, although no one remembers.

There is a wary caution around him when he returns. Sam tries to speak to him, annoyed at his silence. When it becomes apparent that Jim isn't going to talk, he goes off to his girlfriend's house for hours and night's at a time. With Winona also working, Jim is forced to be alone with Frank. After a while of silence and wary stares, his nightmare continues.

He doesn't understand how life could be so unfair and painful for him.

He starts with petty crime again, moving slowly up to cash that he can spend quickly. He starts drinking, aware that it can blot out the screaming and the panic that is _always _in his head. It's difficult to get alcohol at such a young age but when he does, he stashes it under the floorboards of his room and drinks when the dreams become too real. He goes to school and realizes that his charming smile attracts girl, regardless of whether he has friends. He uses it to his advantage, for a time getting them to love and adore him as he always should have been. He grows tired of the falsity of their affections after a while but he craves that first lust.

He turns fifteen and is by far the most intelligent student in school. The teachers can't believe it, all he seems to do is flirt or sit in silence. He's a strange child and they've all heard rumours about Tarsus. He doesn't tell them that at night, he sits in his room with a flashlight and does his homework. He doesn't tell them about coming to school before the sun rises to sit in the library and read and read and read.

He doesn't tell anyone about the nightmares he has, about the dreams of little Sarah being flung to the ground, her skull smashed to pieces. He doesn't tell anyone about how he misses Kevin and the feeling of small, trusting arms around his waist. He doesn't tell anyone that the smell of smoke reminds him of charred bodies rotting under the sun.

He forgets the past, for just a few oblivious years.

_~xx~_

Jim has been a captain for months now, almost stretching into a year.

He is proud of his crew and the way they never back down from a challenge. They remind him of himself; resilient and stubborn. He loves them all.

Spock is still trying to understand the humans. He doesn't speak of his absolute need to be accepted and part of the 'family' they have created. He wants to share in their down moments and trust in their abilities in the high moments. He is on rocky ground with Uhura, after all, he has never had any sort of romantic liaison before and he sometimes thinks that she expects more then he can give. He has yet to understand whether the jumble of emotions inside of him is love or just confusion.

When the Captain is on his breaks, sleeping for those few precious moments that he is allows, Spock is usually without any stimulant. Those times when attacks are occurring are rare and he would rather be coordinating the scientific aspects of their strategies then directing the crew. He usually just sits, sometimes allowing himself to complete his paper work or analyse system functions. As acting Captain for that short time, he has the ability to access confidential files that otherwise would have been restricted to him. He isn't doing anything wrong by looking at them, although he makes sure to only access them when he's acting as Captain.

It takes him a while to stumble on the Tarsus IV file. It should have been sooner, considering that it was the largest genocide since before Starfleet's founding. Every class seemed to have something to say about Tarsus, about why the herbology, the psychology, and the entire political structure of the planet had been flawed. In every file, in every speech and small declaration, there was_ always _a mention of them. Of the nine survivors who had recounted their ordeals to the Starfleet council. The nine, small, emaciated children whom had lived through a genocide and witnessed Kodos in person. He wasn't too concerned about their information at first, after all, they were just children and only the information they supplied was interesting. It was only until they continued to appear, in every line and paragraph of the reports, that he started to become interested. More so then any other, is a boy whom recounts his ordeals with stunning accuracy and clarity, offering only what he knows (which is extensive).

When he opens the link which contains reports on the children, their medical records, backgrounds and qualifications, he doesn't first register what he is seeing. He is sitting in the captain's chair, surrounding by his known and trusted team-mates. The surprise of seeing that name and that face, makes him audibly gasp. The others turn immediately to him, noticing the way his eyes have widened and his mouth is only just open to let his gasp escape. They are concerned because they have never seen him look anything but composed and refined.

"Spock, are you alright?" Ask Uhura, neglecting to use his title.

For a moment, he says nothing, still stunned by those hollow blue eyes and the dirty, scared form of his captain, "… I… am simply shocked."

He says as he closes the screen on his PADD. He wants to read the report desperately but he knows that the secret of his Captain's past needs to stay silent. His fingers itch for the PADD and the report. The crew accept that he is unwilling to talk on the issue but they know that something disturbing has happened, it isn't everyday that Spock shows any kind of reaction to a situation. Even Nero's first communication with them had garnered less of a response then what he was reading.

He's glad that he doesn't see Jim for the rest of the day. He feels as if his surprise might show and that he would be revealing his discovery. He isn't quiet ready for a confrontation, especially considering that the issue is so raw and disturbing.

He meditates on the issue for most of the night, thinking over the reports and medical descriptions. He sighs more then once, because even though he's a Vulcan, he still feels frustration at the issue.

When he's at work the next day, sitting at his computer while the Captain wanders the bridge, he makes up his mind. He isn't going to confront the man, he isn't going to bring up an issue that is painful and disturbing. He's read the reports and he knows, from the margin notes, that the child was desperate to not recount his time on Tarsus. He feels that if it really were important for him to know, Jim would have told him.

So as he observes Jim, and the man turns to smile at him, he knows that he's made the right decision. He knows that some things are better left in the past.

He knows that the past has no business in the future.

_~xx~_

**AN**: I thought I'd put a bit of a different twist on the whole, "friends find out Jim's past," story. In real life, people sometimes find out things they don't want to know and not every revelation continues to a heart-to-heart. I think, as logical as Spock is, he wouldn't find it necessary to bring the issue up. After all, he has read the reports, he knows what happens, through Jim's words himself. By bringing it up, it can only serve to deepen the wound in Jim's mind.


End file.
